Abstract
A key challenge faced by biomimicry practitioners is making the conceptual leap between biology and design, particularly regarding collaborating across these knowledge domains and developing and evaluating design principles abstracted from biology. While many tools and resources to support biomimicry design exist, most largely rely on semantic techniques supporting analogical translation of information between biology and design. However, the challenges of evaluation and collaboration are common in design practice and frequently addressed through prototyping. This study explores the utility of prototyping in the unique context of biomimicry by investigating its impact on the abstraction and transfer of design principles derived from biology as well as on cross-domain collaboration between biologists and designers. Following a survey exploring current practices of practitioners, in depth interviews provided detailed accounts of project experiences that leveraged prototyping. Four primary themes were observed: (1) Approximation; (2) The Prototyping Principle; (3) Synthesis and Testing; and (4) Validation. These themes introduce a unique abstraction and transfer process based on form-finding and collaborative performance evaluation in contrast to the widely accepted semantic language-based approaches. Our findings illustrate how designers and engineers can leverage a prototyping skillset in order to develop boundary objects between the fields of biology and design to navigate challenges uniquely associated with the biomimicry approach.
Highlights
As designers and engineers increasingly look to biology as a source of analogous solutions [1], there is a need that grows in parallel for clearer biomimicry methods and techniques that make biological information accessible and useful to design and engineering challenges [2]
Our findings illustrate how designers and engineers can leverage a prototyping skillset in order to develop boundary objects between the fields of biology and design to navigate challenges uniquely associated with the biomimicry approach
There is a rich body of knowledge on design techniques, prototyping, to manage similar challenges of embodying and developing a design hypothesis, testing and evaluation, and collaboration between stakeholders [13,14,15] that could aid the development of biomimicry projects
Summary
As designers and engineers increasingly look to biology as a source of analogous solutions [1], there is a need that grows in parallel for clearer biomimicry methods and techniques that make biological information accessible and useful to design and engineering challenges [2]. Practitioners are tasked with the analysis, evaluation, and mapping of information between biology and design or engineering in order to produce a design principle that can be transferred and applied to a solution [9,10,11]. These challenges are heightened in biomimicry compared to other forms of design by analogy due to the remote conceptual distance between biology and design that increases complexity and the resources required to employ this unique approach [12]. This study explores how prototyping is currently being used by biomimicry practitioners to abstract, transfer, and aid collaboration between biologists and Designs 2019, 3, 38; doi:10.3390/designs3030038 www.mdpi.com/journal/designs
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